M- Interference theory

Question 1

What is the interference theory?

Answer 1

• Forgetting occurs in the LTM because two memories are in conflict.
• This might result in forgetting or distorting one or the other or both.
• This is more likely to happen if memories are similar.

Question 2

What is proactive interference?

Answer 2

• When an old memory interferes with the forming of a new memory e.g a teacher struggling to learn the names of students in her new class because she’s confusing the names with students in her old class.

Question 3

What is retroactive interference?

Answer 3

• When new memories interfere with old memories e.g forgetting the names of students in the old class after learning the names of students in current class

Question 4

What are the strengths of interferences as an explanation of forgetting?

Answer 4

1) McGeoch and McDonald (1931) demonstrated retroactive interference.
- They gave participants lists of words that they had to learn until they could recall them with 100% accuracy.
- Participants then learned a new list. This new list was either synonyms (words with similar meanings to the words on the original list)
or antonyms (words unrelated to the original list).
- Participants were then asked to remember the original list.
- Participants given the list of synonyms had the
worst recall.
- Learning two lists of words that have the same meaning would cause interference.

2) Baddely and Hitch asked rugby players to remember names of teams they had played earlier in the season.
- The results showed that accurate recall of teams they had played didn’t depend on how long ago they played the last match.
- More important was the a number of games they had played in meantime.
- This is presumably because the more games they played,the greater the risk of new teams they had played interfering with their memories of previous teams they had played

Question 5

What are the weaknesses of interference as an explanation of forgetting?

Answer 5

1) The time period between learning list of words and recalling them tends to be short. E.g 20 minutes.
- In real life there tends to be much longer gaps between when we learn new information.
- Therefore supporting research may lack validity and not reflect how we learn in real life.
- The role of interference as shown by the lab studies may be exaggerated.

2) Research has also shown that the effects of interference can be overcome using cues.
- In support, Tulving gave participants 5 lists of words organised into categories. It was found that recall was about 70% for the first list and this accuracy decreased as the lists went on.
- This was presumably due to interference.
- However when participants were reminded of each category, recall accuracy improved to about 30% again.
- This suggests that memories of the words were stored in LTM but that cues were needed to access some of the words.